[28] Soon after his return to Spain he published a book (Cádiz, 1839) relating his experiences as governor of Filipinas. [↑]
[29] Camba’s wife died, three months after their arrival at Manila; and at her funeral certain military honors were paid her, as provided in the regulations of affairs in the Indias, and these were promptly approved by the home government. Camba’s enemies, however, accused him at Madrid of having had the same honors paid to his wife as were customary with royal persons; and, at the time, the artillery officials demanded from him pay for the powder used on that occasion. (Note by Montero y Vidal.) [↑]
[30] In conjunction with the Audiencia, he commissioned a magistrate, Francisco Otín y Duazo, to draw up new “Ordinances of good government,” in 1838. (Montero y Vidal, ii, p. 360.) [↑]
[31] Montero y Vidal says (iii, p. 21): “On March 21, 1840, the Economic Society of Friends of the Country made a grant of 500 pesos to Father Blanco for the expenses of printing and publishing the Flora which bears his name.” In 1845 a second edition appeared, corrected and enlarged by the author himself; and a third edition was issued (1877–80) at the cost of the Augustinian order. This last was in four volumes, a limited edition, with an atlas (in two volumes) containing 478 colored plates; it also included a previously unpublished MS. on Philippine botany, written late in the sixteenth century, and an appendix prepared by the editors of Blanco (Fathers Andrés Naves and Celestino Fernández-Villar) in which they endeavored to coördinate Blanco’s species with those of other authors and to enumerate all the species of Philippine plants then known. See an account of Blanco’s work and that of his later editors, with estimate of the scientific value of both, in Review of the Identifications of Species Described in Blanco’s “Flora” (Manila, 1905), by Elmer D. Merrill, botanist of the Bureau of Government Laboratories at Manila. [↑]
[32] In Retana’s Periodismo filipino (pp. 566, 567) Torres y Lanzas describes some copies of this periodical, dated October 5–November 9, 1839, and January 23–February 6, 1841; he cites a letter by Urréjola to show that Precios corrientes was published weekly, beginning July 6, 1839, by private enterprise. [↑]
[33] By a later royal decree, the fiscal was to settle any case of disagreement between the two censors, and any books seized by the authorities should be only sent back to the shipper, and not kept by them—the archbishop having demanded that confiscated books should be surrendered to him. (Note by Montero y Vidal.) [↑]